DIAL 'M' FOR MIRTAZAPINE

11:45pm
Mum is vomitting in the toilet. She's been there a while.

According to the online 'Encyclopaedia of Mental Disorders'

"The most common side effects that cause people to stop taking mirtazapine are sleepiness and nausea." www.minddisorders.com

In the last post I mentioned that Mum doesn't care much for sell-by dates - but the green pork we threw out this morning was the only suspect food-stuff, & thats still in the bin (yes, I have checked, I would not put it beyond her to fish it out and eat it raw in an act of defiant independence). Besides, she's never thrown up before, 'least not since I've been living here. She's coming out of the toilet now - while I'm gone you can read the rest of the side-effects listed at minddisorders.com -

"Other common side effects are dizziness, increased appetite and weight gain. Less common adverse effects include weakness and muscle aches, flu-like symptoms, low blood-cell counts, high cholesterol, back pain, chest pain, rapid heartbeats, dry mouth, constipation, water retention, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, abnormal thoughts, vision disturbances, ringing in the ears, abnormal taste in the mouth, tremor, confusion, upset stomach, and increased urination." www.minddisorders.com

12:45am
I made Mum a hot water bottle and a glass of water & she went back to bed, but she's at it again now, I can hear her retching fruitlessly.
I am concerned by the earlier quote, the inference being that nausea is not one of the short-term side effects, but that it endures with extended use.

Remember, folks - unless your doctor is particularly young - they didn't learn about modern anti-depressants at Medical College. They probably just got a presentation from the drugs manufacturer, or attended a conference - was that conference funded wholly or in part by a pharmaceuticals company? I'm sure they'd offer to do it for nothing, being social-minded and all.

Take heed! - for some reason official sources seem to play down the side-effects - so your doctor isn't necessarily any better informed than you. You know this for a fact - if anyone who is anyone goes questioning that party line (the conclusions of inadequate and often biassed medical trials) then they is gonna get their panty-liners sued to hell and back.

I confess, as a practising Anarchist, I am biassed against international capitalist organisations, & the above represents my personal opinion, & not that of Mankind, whom I represent.

I learned three things the hard way - as a former heavy recreational drug-user - these three golden rules make me suspicious of the efficacy of long-term anti-depressant use-

1/ What goes up must come down.

2/ Your mind wants to be the way it is, and will eventually compensate 100% for virtually anything you put into it regularly.

3/ Anything even mildly pleasant can be highly addictive, for psychological addiction is very, very real, & not just for pansies who can't bothered to get addicted to a real drug, like morphine or diazepam.

Having said all that - I'm still up for giving these magic pills a go, provided the vomitting stops, though my instincts are turning against it. If it buys a little time, before the ground on which she thinks finally crumbles, & she falls into the void - or if it restores her will to live - then it will be worth adjusting to.

That reminds me of a dream I dreampt when I was three, vividly recalled here in 2008 -

My family are out for a walk, it is a fine Summer's day & I am riding upon a toboggan, with no visible means of locomotion. We are on ‘The Railway Cutting’ in Muswell Hill, a green and pleasant path, a viaduct, where rails once rumbled, now a narrow park,  it shares a similar giddying view of London to that which you can see from Alexandra Palace, raised as it is above the roads and rows of serried houses.

We are happy, untroubled - but all at once a single brick falls from under our feet, leaving a hole in the ground, a hole that leads to nothingness. The pathway that appeared to be solid does not now seem so stable. Though nothing more occurs & we pretend nothing has changed here - we continue our walk with a sense of rising danger. That which we thought was solid was insubstantial, at any moment the ground could crumble beneath us & we would tumble head-first into that emptiness & kiss the abyss below.

I recall trying to record this dream - frustratedly questing in pictures, just scribbles, to capture it. I stuck the resulting scrawls on the wall of my bedroom, beneath the painted sun.

Now, what was I saying?

I forget
what baffled me